Just Give Me Time to Learn to Crawl
by elveljung
Summary: She's never said anything to Elena, because she figures if Elena doesn't know about Damon it's because she doesn't want to know, and Caroline has never been that important to Elena anyway. Character introspective, angsty Caroline, S3-ish. TW: canon abusive relationship.


Just Give Me Time to Learn to Crawl

The thing is that when things get deep, suddenly you can drown

They're watching _Buffy_ because Bonnie can't stand _Twilight_ – too much vampire romanticism in real life, she says, she doesn't need any more pro-vamp propaganda. This is too bad, because they're at the boarding house and Caroline knows Damon would hear it in his room and hopefully be annoyed by all the sparkling.

Damon Salvatore. Sometimes it's like it begins and ends with Damon, like _she_ begins and ends with Damon. Because Matt tried to change her and she loves Tyler because he didn't – but Damon did change her.

(Or Katherine did, really. But that felt less personal. That was a change in circumstances, kind of, it didn't change _her_ the way Damon did.)

Sometimes she thinks she's going mad, that she made it up somehow, what happened, what he did, because no one ever brings it up. Least of all Caroline. The worst part is, she sometimes likes him. He can be kind, enjoyable. He's easy around her her, he's even saved her. Like it didn't matter to him at all, doing all those things to her.

"This is way better," Bonnie says, and Elena says, "Yeah, I'd forgotten how good it is" in that distracted way that means she's being nice and doesn't have an opinion on it really.

Last time Caroline watched Buffy she crushed on Spike and drank soda in her pyjama, which makes it a little bit weird to be sitting here sipping bourbon and wanting Buffy to oh my god please just stake him already! She knows, because Bonnie explained it to her in what she thought of then as excruciating detail, that Buffy's supposed to be awesome because she's the dumb blond, the victim, except she turns around and defeats the monster.

That didn't happen for Caroline, so she guesses she's not awesome. She's not special or chosen, she's just the dumb blond victim. Well, she's always known that.

Later, because what does studying mean, what does anything mean when you're going to live forever, they continue the 90s golden streak with some girl detective show.

And she must be really drunk now, because she thinks, that could have been me.

_I never told my dad what happened. I don't know what he would have done. Anyway, I'm not that girl anymore._

Except in her case it would have been Mum, and Liz probably wouldn't have believed her, because Caroline' not reliable and always right like Veronica Mars. She's Vampire Barbie, and so Liz would probably think it was just a misunderstanding, just Caroline overreacting, Damon is so nice, so responsible, of course he wouldn't… and in the end when faced with vampires and hating them, her mother accepted Damon before she accepted Caroline, and her father chose death for her and then chose it over her.

She's never been worth much.

On the screen the main characters are exchanging declarations of love, and the alcohol clings sweet and sickening to Caroline's teeth. It reminds her of Elena and her Salvatore suitors, their amped-up reality show life. Sometimes she thinks she'd like to be loved like that, too. Sometimes she knows she couldn't stand it.

Matt's gone and Tyler's gone, and she's alone and she's fine. There's just Klaus now, Klaus who says things like you're beautiful but if you don't shut up I'll kill you. It's okay because she knows he doesn't mean it.

Damon meant it. Damon was real with her.

Elena thinks she knows him so well, that the real Damon only comes out to play with her, but there's a century and a half of murder and hatred packed up inside him and Elena has _no idea_ what the real Damon is like.

Still Caroline hangs out in his house, she drinks his blood and his liquor, because if it doesn't matter to him, why should it matter to her?

Anyway she's strong now. Vampires aren't supposed to be victims. He can't compel her anymore. She can fight. But Damon is a killer in a way Caroline doesn't want to be.

And, well… She likes sex, and blood, and she gets that he wants it. Maybe even gets that after a hundred years of people not being people anymore, it's okay to just take it. Make them give it, whatever.

What she doesn't get it that nobody helped her.

Nobody ever helped Andi either (she is so scared of him). Andi never seemed like she needed help, but Caroline supposes she didn't either. He's very good at that, Damon. It's never enough that he hurts you. He has to make you want it too.

But it wasn't nice, or good, or…. She didn't want it. He could make it good, when he felt like it. But his teeth in her wet neck and his erection sawing between her dry thighs, that wasn't nice. She's never mentioned that to Elena, because she figures if Elena doesn't know it's because she doesn't want to know, and Caroline has never been that important to Elena anyway. So she knows anything Elena said would be about Damon really, about Damon changing and how that's more important. Maybe it is. Caroline has never meant much. She knows Tyler used to be a dick, too, in his day. The difference is Tyler is seventeen, not a hundred and whatever, and Tyler never claimed he changed for her. He changed for himself, because he grew up.

She knows she's a bit of a bitch, too. The neurotic, judgmental, histrionic, selfish, insecure part of her they all hoped would stay dead when she died. It's just, she's all alone. Death is like that.

Her life was too, that's the problem.

She keeps her eyes on the screen but listens to the voices from the other room. It's not just Damon in there anymore, it's Stefan too, and – Klaus.

And Klaus is... He tells her he'll kill her but she knows he won't really, like she knows he doesn't really love her. She has something over him – hummingbirds, ponies, whatever. Has something (has him), finally, over all of them – Damon, Elena, all the people she's never been good enough for.

It's so ridiculous, how he sends her dresses and gives her compliments like promises, like he's trying to build a relationship by sending greeting cards. She and Tyler bonded over his body breaking apart, and how alone and vicious and alive everything suddenly was, for both of them. Except then Tyler sold her to the werewolves, so he wouldn't have to be alone anymore – she'd thought they weren't because they had each other but apparently they'd just been alone together – and then he went to the mountains, and he said it was for her but he didn't want to share it, it wasn't with her. So Caroline is alone. She guesses maybe Klaus is too. He should be. That's what makes her think maybe he isn't, because the people who really should be alone never seem to have to be.

Stefan's voice rises, and Elena's head tilts a little, as though she can hear him on some weird level even though he's half a house away. Caroline hopes she can, that this is true love and forever, because she wants to think that love can last, even when life doesn't. That love, as the only part of the bible she's ever liked says, is stronger than death, and Caroline doesn't exactly believe in god but she'd like to believe in something.

So she looks at Elena, and listens to Stefan. Stefan, who was kind to her. And she knows he's a murderer and cruel but isn't everyone. People die. Caroline died. So it has to be enough. To be kind. To forgive. To get over it. She used to think Elena was too easy like that (Caroline was always the easy one, everyone knew), but she realises now that she had no idea. You forgive and you move on because the only alternative is not moving on, is being left behind.

_fin

A/N: …because while Damon is easily my favourite character and I think Caroline being vamped was one of the best things that ever happened to the show, there's _a lot_ of stuff there that was never properly addressed and really, really should have been.


End file.
